Laquian learned the hard way that you never joke about the boss

There's no way the precipitate fall from grace of neophyte Presidential "chief of staff" Aprodicio Laquian can be cushioned or explained away. In starkest terms, he got his "boss" sore at him.

To be sure, daggers were out, gleefully wielded by Laquian's enemies and rivals, who spotted his boo-boo and quickly alerted the President who was on his way home from an exhausting foray to Mindanao to bolster the morale of our troops in the field. But Prod has nobody to blame but himself. He goofed -- horribly.

Flying in from Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro, Erap was "briefed" about what a surprisingly talkative Prod had said at a televised forum hosted by some editors belonging to the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC). Arriving at the Palace, the President watched the taped show played at 6 p.m. over SAKSI (GMA-7) and TV Patrol (ABS-CBN). He was livid with fury, insiders say.

Laquian had cracked a joke about the President staying up to the early hours of the morning drinking with his buddies. (The luncheon forum had been taped at the Century Park Hotel where he was the guest speaker of the monthly MOPC gathering). It was Cipriano "Cip" Roxas, editor of the Manila Times, who had asked the fatal question. Cip prodded Laquian with a query as to whether he was an "alcoholic drinker also" -- meaning, I guess, like whom? Laquian retorted, probably thinking he was being funny, that it was fortunate that he doesn't drink (or words to that effect) since he was still sober at 4 o'clock in the morning.

"It's the best thing I'm most sober," he cracked. "I'd be the designated driver in Canada to take everybody home to bed . . . Then decision-making will be more rational in the morning."

I suppose, the implication that he still engaged in drinking sprees enraged Erap, who swears he stopped drinking his pre-election favorite, Johnny Walker Blue (taking a milder red wine instead). He angrily interpreted Laquian's jibe as accusing him and his friends of being heavy drinkers.

He confronted Laquian and brushed aside the chief of staff's stammered explanations, including the rather lame excuse that his statements "were used out of context" (after all, the entire episode had been filmed quite candidly for television). Now, poor Laquian is out on his bum. Out of the Palace, out of Arlegui, and presumably will shortly be on his way back to Canada.

If there's a moral to this tale, and I hope this doesn't sound preachy, it's that a chief of staff or a Cabinet member is like a butler or a valet. He must never tell. Not now. Not ever. As for trying to put over a joke at the boss's expense -- that's fatal.

Those who are sneering at Laquian today -- in this country they delight in kicking you when you're down -- are not getting it right when they scoff that Laquian lived long abroad, in the US and Canada, that he lost touch with the way things are handled in the Philippines. What the unfortunate Laquian did was very Filipino. Talk too much. Get carried away, taunted by pointed questions or seduced by flattery. Giving in, probably, to the temptation of "lifting one's own bench" (another Pinoy expression) at the expense -- and behind the back -- of the boss. The trouble is that the cruel eye of the TV camera caught the action, and TV recorded the cutting remarks intended to be jocular.

Everybody, it seems, rushed to Malacañang to see what could be done, whether to calm the President down, or more likely, throw more oil, not on "troubled waters", but on kindling to stoke up the fire. The President was so furious, it's said, that he was still boiling mad at 2:30 in the morning.

They were all there -- son Jinggoy Estrada, daughter Jackie and her husband Beaver Lopez. Secretary Jimmy Policarpio was dispatched posthaste to the newspapers to try to exert some damage-control. Beaver rang up ABS-CBN to tell them not to replay the Laquian remarks on Pulso, the 11 p.m. program. The station squelched the story. They were less lucky with Channel 7, which went on to replay the loquacious Laquian's ill-fated sally.

The President "fired" Laquian, that's what Alikabok confirms. However, the "Politeness Twins," Finance Secretary Jose "Titoy" Pardo and Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, were also on hand -- as always -- to represent the proverbial "cooler heads" who always seem to intervene.

Mar Roxas hastily wrote up a "resignation letter" for Prod Laquian, which Laquian signed. The President personally read the "resignation" letter over the air on DZMM radio yesterday.

Prod lasted only 41 days in the Palace by the Pasig. Quick in and quick out. What can we say but goodbye?

Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had been expected by many to march into the Greenhills Walking Corporation forum yesterday with fire in her eye, ready to announce a break with Erap and unloose salvos on the BW scandal, corruption and graft, et cetera. Wasn't she, after all, supposed to be a leader of the Opposition? Like say, the Lakas-NUCD (as ex-President Fidel V. Ramos and ex-Speaker Joe de Venecia assured me she was), or at least her original KAMPI?

Instead, La Gloria confirmed that she fully intends -- for the nonce -- to remain on Erap's team and continue playing "the good soldier." That is, of course, until further notice.

Then, after a lively open forum (the queries, to clarify, were lively at least, but the answers were cautious), the Veep smiled at everyone, waved gaily, and marched out of the Ristorante to rush to the airport where her plane, a regular flight, was waiting to whisk her off to China on a weeklong official visit. After China, she'll fly onwards to Israel's "Ben Gurion" airport by El Al to begin another visit to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and the Galilee. In short, she doesn't expect anything confrontational to occur during her protracted absence. In fact, according to her mimeographed schedule, the Vice President may even make a side-trip to San Francisco on April 5.

La Gloria, outside of her prepared text (largely supportive of Erap, although she did take a swing at the BW resources and the stock market scandal, intoning that "heads must roll", etc.), was deliberately upbeat and cheerful.

When asked by somebody in the audience what she had learned from her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, she dimpled: "What my father taught me was that, as a public servant as in private life, you must do your best but let God do the rest." (God -- may I interject? -- must really be overworked this season).

She added that in coping with the current situation, it was better "to try to be sober about things, rather than grab headlines."

She recalled a recent pilgrimage to the convent of the Carmelite sisters to pray before the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux.

"Those Carmelite nuns," she recalled, "may be contemplative sisters, but they all knew what was going on." (Probably readers of The STAR in between matins and lauds). What she learned from the teachings of St. Therese, the Vice President pointed out, was to "live for the grace of the moment."

What, no coup d'etat (or kudeta as it's spelled in the region)? Gloria said, pointedly, that "the end of President Estrada's administration would not come until the Year 2004", which she pronounced, quite emphatically twice, "Twenty-Oh-Four."

Those who expected fireworks, naturally, were disappointed. But again, La Gloria is only doing what Erap did. He stuck to FVR until the very last minute. What the cute little Veep believes to be "the very last minute" is, of course, a secret between her and St. Therese.

When I asked her during the open forum whether she wasn't "in danger of missing the boat," her smile grew even wider. She didn't say "what boat"? Only implied that the boat wouldn't be leaving without her.

I first met Gloria when she was a precocious 13 years old, and her brother Bubuy (also a certified genius) was 9. In those days, I was the irreverent and sassy "boy publisher" of The Evening News, which was what the then Publisher and owner of the Manila Bulletin, the late General Hans Menzi, called me. All the other newspapers, including the Manila Chronicle, Manila Times, Bulletin, etc., were supporting the incumbent President Carlos P. Garcia in his reelection bid.

I decided to throw the well -- I hesitate to exaggerate -- "weight" of my newspaper behind the upstart Vice-President Diosdado Macapagal.

Macapagal won. I must say that Garcia, instead of being the usual Pinoy-style sore loser and sour-graper (nobody ever "loses" an election here, they always cry out they were "cheated"), gracefully conceded the election to Macapagal.

Those were heady days for the Poor Boy from Lubao (as Cong Dadong dubbed himself). He was an honest guy. His first Executive Order was to ban all relatives, kin, in-laws to the third degree of consanguinity or relationship from being appointed to any government position or hired by the government, or from receiving any government contract.

He was also onion-skinned. When the ballots were in and he saw victory in sight, Dadong asked me to be his Press Secretary, which I declined. I reminded him of our deal, which we had shaken hands on while planning his campaign in his home in San Juan (yep, DM also lived in San Juan). It was that my newspaper would back him up to election day and his winning of the Presidency, but after that my editors and I would go on to do our duty, and become his "most relentless critics."

Within one year of Dadong and the First Lady, the late Evangelina (she hated to be called Eva) entering Malacañang, I was no longer welcome at the Palace, not even receiving a greeting card at Christmas.

Less than a year before he died (I believe it was at Gloria's instigation), Dadong and Evangelina gave a dinner in my honor and that of my wife, Precious, in Forbes Park. It was Dadong's graceful gesture of reconciliation. I must admit it touched me deeply.